Electra’s dictionary noir; I am me ,I am mine Prt2

“Did anyone see you get out of the postal vehicle?” Stina asks me from the front seat, in her usual no-nonsense tone that always gets my back up 

“I don’t think so, Willem pulled up beside a dumpster and —you know, I was….careful. I’m not an idiot,” the last part I say defensively 

“Good. You seem to be a natural at this.”

I never know with her if she really means anything she says. But I am so lost in my brooding thoughts of ….well; is it anger —or pain?

I think about getting lost somewhere where no one will ever find me. Just ghosting everyone and everything ….as if I could but still…. I think about it…. and I’ve done it before  

even as the things you run away from still haunt at you, pressing the eject button that gets you out the emergency exit is very freeing 

I like feeling free. The illusion of freedom is so thrilling to me; no strings, no one to check in with, no one who would notice that you are alive or dead 

just go. because people and myself are not natural companions and only because I forget not to trust; I start to believe them…. and nobody ever tells the truth ….wrap you in and I suppose part of it must be the challenge of whether or not they can crack you like a safe; conquer you…. 

it isn’t that I don’t believe in love.

so what do I believe in?

“What if I told you I know a doctor who is working on DNA memory theory and is actually in the area?” Stina suddenly says 

“What?” I sit up right and for the moment forget my brooding 

“Yes. She’s got her own practice as a psychiatrist but she has devoted years of work researching this very subject. Her name is Dr. Rachel Evans. Her practice is in Chesterton,” Stina goes on to say in a strangely friendly tone 

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I know this is a subject that interests you. You’ve written about this, haven’t you?”

“Great, so you are reading my blog now—I can’t imagine why unless you want something from me.”

“Are you interested in talking with this person?” Stina asks me

“In exchange for what?” I ask, “because I thought originally you just wanted me to spy on Jörn and ….well, you know more about his whereabouts these days than I do.”

“So—in exchange ….I would like you to find out more about Sunny.”

“Sunny?”

“Yes. We have suspicions he is not as retired as he pretends to be—possible links with not just what happened on January 6 but possible covert operations to undermine more than one country’s government dealings….”

I think even if she said he was a little green man I would be too numb to care 

I don’t answer and lean my head against the window 

I feel so trapped. So isolated and stranded. But mostly so sick of believing people who deceive me

“Dr. Evans is expecting your call,” Stina tells me, “she also happened to be a part of a recent excavation in an area in Great Britain known as Powys.”

I see her look at me in the rear view mirror 

I think about ….how there really is not that much to excite me or challenge me lately 

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Just—pay attention to who he meets with, who comes by. I want you to just watch for things. And check in with me once a week.”

Electra’s dictionary noir; I am me, I am mine

 

I stand at the shipping launch as I watch the large cruiser slowly diminish into the distance; lost upon the horizon 

and I feel as if I have seen this scene so many times 

repeated 

over and over

the landscape alters in dreams. the lands change replaced and overlaid with patch worked memories and dreams from …. so many of the celves 

I feel so empty inside …. I am lost upon the horizon 

Do I know the uniformed postal worker with the odd accent stands nearby? as I say aloud to myself,

“….how will I get back?”

But what do I mean? from that lost horizon ….? or from some long lost land….

“Your ride is here,” the postal worker says with his Dutch accent that only I can hear him say as amongst the activity, there is noise of the water; of the motors all around; of voices making static on the wind…. and the wind itself ….which carries the sounds away, far away from the maddening crowd 

I turn and see a black car with an Uber sign in the window of the back passenger side and I see the familiar figure of Stina step out of the car and walk over

I look at Willem as Stina nears us, she calls my name and says,

“you ordered a ride?”

“Did I?” I say still obtuse to no one in particular but …. perhaps to myself 

Willem walks casually near me back in the direction of the postal van and says,

“you should go with her. She’ll bring you back. I will text you later; we can’t talk here— don’t look at me as I walk away….”

Then he walks to the van

I turn to Stina,

“oh—yes, I’m ….who the ride is for….” and I am so numb inside that I just walk straight to the Uber car with no emotion and feel so exhausted when I slide into the back seat…..

Electra’s dictionary/“Operation delivery ‘going postal’” Noir

 

Operation delivery ‘going postal’” goes perfectly without a single hitch, as it is Willem who arrives driving the delivery van, as I had half expected it would be. As expected, Sunny is not present during the ‘pickup service’. So, from the nearby cluster of thick shrubs, Jörn is camouflaged by the thickly leaved trees as Willem opens the back of the van to remove a large box of wild deer feed at the moment Jörn climbs in. Willem neatly shuts the back and carries the box of deer feed to the spot where Sunny has in past requested his packages to be placed 

I casually walk up the long drive that leads to the dirt road and walk to the end of it where the postal van is waiting to pick me up so that I may say my goodbyes to Jörn. 

The ride to Chesapeake Bay’s ship launch is heavily silent though as Willem drives and Jörn and I sit in the back on the floor surrounded with shipping boxes, all of which are actually empty 

I feel as though someone should say something but it seems none of us find something relevant and worth saying but then, they have their top secret world and who am I in all of the grand scheme of things? 

“Will you report to Stina?” Jörn asks suddenly over the hum of the van as he looks up from the cover of the floor to watch the sky through the cargo window 

“Is this really what you choose to talk about right now when I don’t even know when I’ll see you again?”

“He’s right,” Willem says from the front, “you should. This way if anything—“ he stops whatever he was about to say and pauses as though to reconsider his words, “I would also feel better having someone or some way we can reach you. We don’t feel it is safe for you with that maniac still out on the loose too and Sunny….he’s retired and not up on ….how things work these days….”

“Why would you need to reach me?” I ask and watch Jörn for any sign of emotion 

He glances up at me and raises one brow. Then keeps his eyes steady on me; they are shadowed and still gray overcast and reveal nothing 

I look away

“Duva….” he touches my hand and then takes it in his. But I don’t look at him. There have been so many stretches of silences between us and I just don’t know if he leaves me with any possibility of believing in ….anything. More softly and just audible to me, he says again, “duva….” and weaves his long fingers through mine 

“The last time you just ….there was nothing; no communication from you—nothing! I mean, I do understand you’re in deep cover but, Jörn, already the ties between us have been so sketchy at best but ….mostly frayed at the rope’s end ….” the last part of what I say comes out tense but my eyes tear and I look away 

We reach the bay and there is the shifting of props —he changes clothes putting on a US  naval military disguise but is set to climb into a box large enough to contain him. I realize the plan is to have Willem cart him to the ship in the box using a hand truck but the rest I have not enough to understand more of their plan 

“So this is it?” I look at him as he is about to climb in it

Willem says from the front,

“I’ll let you talk in private,” he gets out

But then not much is said beyond,

“you’ll hear from me ….I promise….”

“You said that last time,” I look up at him and search his eyes, then I say, “be careful,” and grip his hand tight, “please….”

conversation, ymddiddan/Electra’s dictionary

   

There is this sense always when you turn back the pages of a lifetime and it feels as if that lifetime has remained preserved; frozen as it was

That life. That relationship. Those people you were. 

To me, it is like you could see them there still; your ghosts haunting the hallways of scenes from that life. There they are still lurking in the shadows of rooms where the dust glistens like pixie dust and romanticizes forgotten pain 

“Do you know where I am right now?” Bran. His voice. Alive. It reaches me through that audible organ my phone is pressed to; ageless and ….still belonging to that ‘her’ that ‘“Beth” who is what?’  

But in slow motion I only comprehend the meaning as I am myself in this strange bedroom that I have only learned to occupy as mine of Sunny’s hunting lodge. No the bedroom is not strange. Just strange as in I am its stranger; new and not mine and I am not its 

I belong to me. I am mine. 

or am I? I look around me and wonder how to mesh the celves ….how to become its whole; how to find perspective with this voice that belongs to a man who once broke my heart 

“Cardiff?” I ask him. And I fear the very strangeness of my voice gives me away

“Well…. I mean—where I am sitting….calling you from….” and that lilting of his accent befuddles my mind playing tricks with how it causes me to feel

I only realize when I exhale I’ve been holding my breath and need to breathe and must stop to inhale deeply as I pull the phone away a moment so as not to give myself away 

I cannot find any answer though to what he has said and feel too dizzy to think 

“I used to call you from my car outside, remember? I showed you ….”

“The same car?” I ask because I remember it from our trip when we drove from Paris to Rouen 

“No—that one had a sad demise,” he says with a kind of heavy nostalgia

“So the same house then….” I say because ….because ….it was that life that won over me 

“Well….it’s ….a lot different now—added on….” he says and I note he refrains from any pronoun 

“How is Clare?” I ask as I put my mind on the frank reality of the present 

“She’s ….she’s….” he sighs heavily 

“And the child …? Should be —what eight right now, I guess?”

“Please Beth….” unexpected is the heavy sorrow in his deep voice, “you’ve been on my mind so much lately,” he says with a sigh of defeat 

“Have you been reading my blog?”

“Do you think I ever stopped?” he asks

“I don’t know. How would I know?” I ask him. But then ask, “why did you call?”

He does not answer right away. But hear him moving around in his car. In my mind he is still in that old faded blue car with the mis-folded old maps stuck in the visors. 

After a moment he says,

“I’ve needed to hear your voice again. Maybe it was that recording. Or….maybe ….I just wanted that glimpse back of feeling ….anything.”

“It’s been eight years….” and I regret how cold my voice says this 

“I deserve that,” he says 

“No—no—I’m sorry….I ….have wondered about you. I just felt it was best to leave you in peace.”

“Peace. Is that what you call this?”

“I don’t know….but still, I mean—I left Chris ages ago and even that life feels it belonged to someone else.”

“I’ve been replaced by a Viking,” his laugh is forced 

“Not replaced —another who is otherwise engaged so to speak; unofficially still with his partner.”

“What happened with the other one?” he asks trying to seem casual 

“Who? Eliot? The step cousin of my illegitimate father and his ridiculous ideas….?”

“Nicholas? The archeologist researcher, professor?”

“Nigel—oh, he was just ….that was….I don’t know; his DNA memory theory was really why but he—was….I think he was my rebound ….from you,” and only as I say this do I realize what that was, “why did you really call me, Bran? Don’t tell me it was to give me lessons in Welsh.”

“But….it would be a good excuse,” he says 

  

mapping a legend

 

The first time I visited England I was six. It was a family summer vacation. My mother’s husband (aka ‘Hitler’) bragged about our summer holidays but it was part of his work; he sold travel ad space to travel agents so, this was homework to an obsessed shallow man. He imagined himself to be Onassis one day so he was all about the bling before that was a word 

I had lived the first year of my life on the island of Jamaica because my mother left her husband ….there was question of whose I was ….for good reason; but the story held ….after the one year away from America living at her best friend’s holiday resort hotel. 

They used to tell me their wild stories. I heard about the two gorgeous blonds dazzling the jet setters; movie stars, authors, billionaires, you name it. My mother was not wasting her time on just anyone and her best friend? Let’s call her Barbie for this; she was the equal in looks to my mother so, I imagine they were a force to contend with. My mother was very charming. And she was smart. Too smart for her own good in those days. 

Anyway…. that is how we lived that odd life we did and how and why money got blown away ….gosh could they do it up …. my mother had to have the best 

I’d watch it all from the walk in closet floor through a crack in my mother’s walk in closet; my secret room ….I heard more than she knew 

Anyway ….

I never felt I fit there. In that family. They were all crazy. My sister who molested her sister, the dad who whipped the daughter with his Baly belt “which one, sweetie….” no he called me something else —one was bastard 

My mind often took off and I saw things nobody else did 

they thought it was odd how it came true and I was always right  

But the moment we landed at  Heathrow Airport ….the voices all around, the manners ….then once out in the open windowed drive…. the scent on the air….I’d been here before….I turned to look for things I knew….the slope of the land and ….the color of the horses     

 

I remember crosses, fields, they went on and on, rolling green and hills, hammers. The hills turned into rocky paths. And the drumming. They shook the trees and the ground ….I would stare into the distance and see ….they littered the road everywhere and the acrid scent that blew across and stayed inside your breath and taste ….I remember her; she was apart from the rest of us but…. when she had something to say, she would come and find us. She told me about the man who would come. First one and then I would never see him again. She said they would come and I would go. With them. 

 c'est moi qui ai été aveugle